Hard Wired
A trail of leaked internal fluids betrayed the Autobot spy’s position, he had been on the run for many cycles but no one was following him. He painfully switched back from his Assault Tank alt form and slumped heavily against a laser pocked wall, his hand clutched tightly to the gaping wound in his side and the bright glow of internal energon fluids seeped slowly through his thick and scarred fingers. He grunted in pain and pulled his hand up to his face and stared blankly at the iridescent colours as it changed from white to violet through to green and orange all at the same time. It was at times like this that the universe becomes an open book; the realisation that something this beautiful could be the provider of life for such a barbaric race of creatures… and although his neural capacity was on minimal functions his spark could still interpret the irony of his situation and betray him with a dark laugh. Feeling his power ebbing away, he activated his internal diagnostic routines and estimated from the readout that he had a mere moments left before his energy was utterly depleted. Unable to hold upright any longer, he collapsed uncomfortably to the ground with a ungraceful thud, the leaked energon around him pooled in the moonlight and he swirled it around with an unbroken finger. In the darkness of the midnight Cybertronian wastelands he expended his last few milliseconds of power sending out a futile distress call… the vain hope that one of his team may still be alive and able to locate him prevented him from giving up; ‘You always were a fighter Hard Cover, bred for violence’ echoed the voice of his special op’s commander as the haunting memory returned ‘…and, one day it will either destroy you or save you, but only you can choose your path.’ These words replayed in his head over and over, twisting his perceptions of how he was going to die as he gazed into the patterns in the energon pool until he stopped suddenly, the conclusion was the same, forgotten here in the darkness. His commander had been terminated - by him – exposed as a double agent, Covers entire team dead as a result of their betrayal. The Decepticons had known they would be coming – they were far too powerful and were too well informed, his entire time undercover may as well have been spent as a double agent; the Autobots could win this war. The soldiers whole life had been shattered, his entire faith in the reasons behind this war being waged was eradicated in an instant; The Decepticons embrace freedom, they do not force their ideals on others, maybe their way was right… he looked to the darkened sky above for counsel and tried to vocalise his frustration at this waste of his life…‘Slaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaag!’ With this final poisonous outburst, his blue eyes flickered once and extinguished as he descended into the darkness of permanent stasis lock. In a region where no one knew who he was, disguised as a soldier of the enemy, Hard Cover, Autobot undercover agent, specialising in infiltration and tactical covert operations into the Decepticon army heavy warfare unit, died. Alone. ... It is unknown if Transformers have the capacity to dream; to these mechanical creatures, ‘Sleep’ is a complete shutting down of all external and specific internal circuits, nets and machinery to allow the core, or spark, to replenish its power reserves allowing coordination, mobility and cognisant thought for another series of cycles. Dreaming is regarded as incorrectly executing the shutdown procedure; however this Transformer didn’t dream; he suffered, suffered from an unimaginably horrific nightmare… …He knew this place, he had seen into here before, every time it had been the epitome of terror for him. But not this time. The faces of those who he cared for were paraded in front of him, twisted and darkened, slowly spiralling uncontrollably towards the screaming and wailing vortex of the absence of light, calling to him to forgive them, to help them, to hurt them, to kill them… he glared in hatred at the twisted face of his unit commander, the betrayer, repeating his last few words as an insult; ‘You cannot win! What you fight for is not freedom! Give in to the power of the Decepticons…’ At the core of the endless darkness, feeding upon the apparitions of the expired around him this creature, borne of terror, stood astride the eye of the maelstrom, gaining power as he consumed. A Daemon, both as miniscule as an electron and as cycloptic as a Planet Eater, bore its stare directly into the spark of the fallen warrior, as if failing to notice the broken vessel that had housed it for millennia. It reached out a clawed yet elegant hand that seemed to cover light-years in distance without distorting its flawless and evil manifestation and plucked the white spark effortlessly from the incorporeal chest of the Autobot. As the last strings of glowing consciousness snapped away from the spark and hung lifelessly in the void, the comfort of life began to leave and the coldness of the eternal emptiness began to seep into his joints and servo’s of the recently deceased. Hard Cover could feel that death had come for him… But upon the touch of the creature he saw clarity, as his words and the destroyer who stood before him both came forth as one; ‘My existence has been wasted! We are nothing but machines of war! We are here to destroy! Primus has been wrong all along! Now I have a new master… Hail the Darkness; bringer of the Void! HAIL THE AUDITOR!’ and upon this revelation, his world was forever changed. The creature at the core of the vortex noticed him. Holding his insubstantial spark delicately between an elegant finger and thumb of pure darkness he stroked it with a lengthy talon and laughed an encompassing, world shattering laugh. The spark began to slowly darken in colour, as if it was being tarnished by entropy, then slowly, not taking his eyes off Hard Cover for an instant and for the first time in millennia, The Deamon spoke in words so bold that they manifested themselves physically in front of him: I WILL GRANT YOU THE POWER TO DESTROY THOSE WHO TRY TO STOP YOU, THE RETURN OF YOUR SPARK AND A PLACE IN HISTORY. IN RETURN: YOU WILL SERVE ONLY ME. YOUR PAST LIFE IS NOW HISTORY. YOU WILL AID MY PROPHET IN YOUR REALM. YOUR RACE WILL BOW IN TERROR BEFORE MY THRONE. ALL THIS SHALL BE DONE IN THE NAME OF THE NECRONOMITRON. IMPRINT HERE AND BE REBORN _________________________ Without hesitation the drifting Autobot placed his palm on the lines in the void in front of him and with a deep hissing like air escaping from a vacuum, he was suddenly jerked downwards into the spiralling and utter darkness, the words haunting him as fell plummeted. ... Mal Practice delicately snapped the patients final chest cover shut and stood back to admire his work. The recruit has been easy to reformat, but the respray had taken all of his artistic genius. He glanced over towards the viewing window at Psychout in an attempt to gauge his masters opinion, but behind the uniform faceplate that he habitually wore it was near impossible to tell what he was thinking, the little cassettes’s eyes were fixed on the pained facial expression the deceased had worn as he died and did not stray. Re-activating the energon restraints, the ambulance dressed in long black robes bearing the RDD symbol stepped deftly backwards and entered the viewing chamber to stand at the side of his leader. ‘Where did you find him?’ Mal addressed his leader cautiously, as if for the first time in magecycles. ‘In the wastelands.’ was the simple response ‘How did you know it was him?’ Psychout replied with a shrug. ‘I don’t. The power in me does not clarify its requests, but there were no other war machine corpses there, and this has the face of the Deathbringers mark…’ he spent another few seconds staring at the mask of horror worn by deaths most recent victim. ‘Lets get this done…’ Mal Practice nodded his agreement, deftly touched a series of buttons on the console in front of him and the lights in the laboratory dimmed leaving only the red hue of their eyes illuminating the chamber. Energy pulsed through tubes and along wires as the still form of WarPorn’s newest recruit was slowly re-energised. Psychout leapt into the air and switched to his rarely used cassette form landing in the ambulance’s firm but delicate grip and he was carefully inserted into a indentation designed into the console. The spools within him began turning back and forth with a violent jolt and an deep amethyst glow enveloped him and began to slowly ebb through the wiring feeding power into the lifeless form on the operating slab. On the table the still creature suddenly burst into life, writhing and fighting as if electrocuted and trying in vain to tear himself from the energon restraints as a sterile, cold white light flooded the room, temporarily blinding the hooded figure of Mal Practice in the adjacent chamber. As the dark power of the Necronomitron, administered by its Prophet, flooded the dead Autobot with malice, filled it with hatred, swarmed it with anger, words were spoken in Psychout’s voice but these were not the words of the Cassetticon himself; ‘THIS VESSEL WILL SUFFICE TO WORK MY WILL IN YOUR REALM. DECEPTICON, ARISE AND SERVE ME!’ Mal knew that to be his cue. Ejecting his leader from the data console he flawlessly executed the correct combination of buttons as rapidly as he could and simultaneously performed the final nectomantic enchantment for reanimation, chanting the dark incantations for the resurrection of the spark, he waved his hand in a complicated 5 figure gesture that hung in the air for a crimson second and evaporated. In an instant, the fundamental laws of the Transformer universe were irreparably broken; and the ramifications would continue to reverberate for eternity. Psychout collapsed as he transformed back to his robot mode and braced himself; this was the first time that they had combined their powers in this way, and he could feel the drain upon both his own power reserves and in the Necronomitron’s influence on his mind – if some of the creature had been instilled into the warrior then plan was complete; Now to see what they had created… ... The darkness receded slowly and the animated opened red eyes to take in his surroundings. The ambient energy signature was Decepticon, but he no longer cared; whatever part of him that controlled his hatred and channelled it towards those he thought were evil was gone - as if the doors had been torn from their hinges, now he felt nothing for anybody. He sat up and felt a thirst hit him like a titanium tractor… ‘Graaahhhh!! Energon! I need a drink, or to smash something. Preferably both!!!’ Psychout handed the giant red tank a huge container full of distilled energon, which he gulped down in an instant, wiped his mouth savagely and let out a belch that rattled the windows of the viewing chamber. He looked down at the diminuative cassette, ‘So, I work for now then? Fine. Who do I get to kill?...’ Psychout grinned a maniacal grin behind his faceplate, his eyes darkening. ‘Welcome to WarPorn Industries, . ‘I have your first assignment right here, Youre going to infiltrate your old unit...’